The invention relates to an installation for packaging a gaseous NO/N2 mixture into gas containers, particularly one or more gas cylinders, using mass flow meters, and to an associated packaging method.
Gaseous NO/N2 mixtures are commonly used to treat pulmonary vasoconstrictions in adults or children, particularly in newborn infants suffering from primary pulmonary hypertension or in patients who have undergone cardiac surgery.
These NO/N2 mixtures are conventionally packaged into steel gas cylinders. Typically, these cylinders contain, by volume, 100 to 1000 ppm of NO, the remainder being nitrogen (N2). These cylinders usually have a water capacity of 2 to 50 liters, which means that a total charge of as much as 15 m3 of NO/N2 mixture can be admitted to them depending on the filling pressure, for example for a final pressure of the order of 200 to 300 bar.
The packaging of these mixtures, which means the filling of cylinders with these mixtures, is done at gas filling centres.